


Breakup Buddies

by NuclearPoweredStick



Category: Star vs. The Forces Of Evil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:41:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26438878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NuclearPoweredStick/pseuds/NuclearPoweredStick
Summary: After a personal revelation, Marco has a difficult conversation with Kelly about the future of their relationship (One shot. Takes place shortly after the episode Knight Shift. Originally created for a 24 hour writing challenge with the theme of "abandon".)
Kudos: 1





	Breakup Buddies

Kelly smiled with delight as she knocked on Marco's front door. They have been casually dating for a few weeks. Or, as they were choosing to call their relationship, breakup buddies. But to Kelly, he was her boyfriend in all but name. After taking a few punches from her local dimensional travel agent, Kelly had taken a portal and arrived at Marco's house at his invitation.

As Marco opened the door and invited her inside, Kelly noticed that he looked a bit nervous and tense. But for Marco, she thought, that wasn't anything out of the ordinary. "Hey Marco." Kelly leaned to greet Marco with a kiss on his cheek.

"Uhh, wait, hold on a second." Marco declined the kiss, ducking away before Kelly could reach him.

Kelly jerked away in confusion, wondering if she should be offended. Though they hadn't been together very long, Marco had never acted like THIS before. "What? Is everything okay? Do I need a mint or something?" Kelly blew her breath onto her wrist, checking for bad breath.

"No, no, no mint." Marco cleared his throat, composing himself. He'd been preparing for this most of the day. Now that the moment had arrived, he found the preparation hadn't done much good. "So... here's the thing about that."

"Here's what thing about what?" Kelly already didn't like where this conversation was going. She found herself wishing it could be as simple as bad breath. When Marco had invited her over, she'd had no hint that it was going to be this kind of conversation.

"Okay..." He took a deep breath. Marco had spent the past few days dreading this conversation, but he knew it needed to happen. "I've been doing some thinking, and I think... I think we should stop being breakup buddies."

Kelly felt her heart drop into the pit of her stomach. She'd been afraid this would happen sooner or later, but she had chosen to push the fear to the back of her mind and push forward. But some part of her realized that she never could've avoided it. All the signs had been there from the beginning. She didn't really need to ask the reason, but somehow she needed to hear it out loud. "Star?"

Marco nodded and sighed heavily. He wasn't remotely surprised that she had guessed correctly. "I tried, Kelly. I tried SOOOOOO hard to get over her. When you said this whole thing would help me forget, I really wanted you to be right." He didn't LOVE Kelly, but he did like her. Marco had hoped that would be enough. But recently, he had come close to being assigned a knightly post somewhere far away from Star. After realizing what the mere threat had done to him, he realized that just liking someone could never be enough in comparison to what he felt for Star. "And yet here we are." He shook his head, defeated. For all his efforts, he didn't think he'd ever be able to give up on Star. Not really. Even if she was with someone else, even if it meant that he would be alone, no one would ever be able to take her place.

Kelly had some idea of what Marco was going through. She couldn't even count how many times she had broken up with Tad before she got over him. She still wasn't sure she WAS over him. So Kelly couldn't help but sympathize with Marco. That didn't stop his words from hitting her like a punch to the gut. She sucked in a breath and put on the most sympathetic look she could muster. "It's okay." Kelly reached out to take Marco's hand to comfort him, but quickly thought better of it under the circumstances. "It's okay. I get it. If you think we need to break up-"

"I mean, we weren't technically TOGETHER together... were we?" Marco cut her off immediately. He didn't seem happy with her choice of words. "Just breakup buddies, right?"

Kelly wasn't sure if Marco was being thoughtless, overly literal, or trying to spare her feelings by pretending THIS somehow wasn't a breakup. If it was the latter, it hadn't worked. It was hard for her to put words to her emotions. Betrayed was perhaps too strong a word, but she certainly felt abandoned. In all her fights with Tad, she had never felt so thoroughly rejected. "Right. Yeah. I guess that's what we said, wasn't it?"

"So... we're cool?" Marco had a look on his face like he was waiting for a bomb to go off.

"Yeah, S- sure Marco, we're cool." Kelly turned away to hide the tears welling up in her eyes, but couldn't quite conceal the tremble in her voice. "Why w- wouldn't we be cool?"

"Okay, whew!" Marco wiped the sweat off his forehead, relieved that today hadn't turned into some kind of interdimensional incident. "I'm glad you're taking this so well. I really do still want to be friends."

"Friends... sure." Kelly couldn't even look back to face him. It felt like her heart had been ripped in half. She was used to breaking up with Tad, but not this. She thought Marco would be different. But it was all happening to her again, just like it always had. "Marco, I need to go home. I forget to... I think my mom wanted me to wash... something. I'll see you later."

The excuse was transparent even to Marco. "Kelly, wait, are you sure you're-" Before he could finish his sentence, she had already rushed out and slammed the door in his face. He dashed out after her, but she was already gone, presumably back to her home dimension. He stared out at the empty yard and empty streets, alone once again, left wondering whether he had done the right thing.


End file.
